Rules of Magic

Magic has rules.

Blessed be the Maiden Goddess on this holy Sabbat of Ostara.

No not that kind of magic. I mean fictional magic.

Some books have very detailed rules of magic, while others are more laid back. One series with the loosest rules of magic I can immediately think of would be Harry Potter. Harry didn't have mana, or even get tired if he cast too many spells (as far as I'm aware of, please correct me if I'm wrong), nor did he have to do any setup or preparation. The only limits were that they had to use words and wands.

Except for this badass reading Stephen Hawking

Kids' books are more likely to have loose rules (or no rules at all), but on the other end there are some books that have such tight, planned-out rules that they rival some hard science fiction books. Both can be frustrating to a reader because magic should be believable, but also fun.

Here's a rundown of magics that I've come across and/or used. They are usually a mixed and matched to fit the story.

Physics

Some people like to anchor magic with physics, and I use a little bit of this myself. To create a fireball, Crystal has to gather heat from her surrounding area. A witch creating a fireball would then see their breath fogging up. The same would be for ice, in order to freeze something, a witch would have to heat up the air around them. Realistically using these two abilities would risk hypo and hyperthermia if used on a grand enough scale. If you are writing using magic of this caliber, consider using it more creatively than just an attack. A good example is in the Dresden Files Series, Harry manages to shoot a fireball up into the sky not to attack something, but so that he could draw heat from a lake and freeze the surface, giving him a chance to run across the surface.

Knowledge

In my personal opinion, this one is pretty weak. You need to read dozens upon dozens of books just to light a candle with your mind. Instead, consider real-life hobbies. You are building a deck.

Fancy.

Do you need to read books and books and books before you can even pick up a hammer? Heck no, but it's probably a good idea. You can build a deck with absolutely no knowledge or experience. The wood will split because you didn't finish it, the posts will rot because you didn't use treated wood, the hot tub will collapse because you built it with shims. It won't be a good deck, but you still had the power to build a deck. The same really should be said for magic.

Mana

Mana is a general term for "magic power" it's pretty common in videogames, that gauge below your health meter that is always blue for some reason. Mana is typically used in some form or another. It's why a character gets tired after casting a bunch of magic. Mana comes from various sources and depends on the book your reading. It can be from within, from the air, from someone's life source, from specific items. It can also be called nearly anything: energy, essence, MP, ether, essence.

Object enchantment

Even if mages require books or have mana-based magic, there are almost always objects imbued with magic. Only in a small handful of books do you read about a mage actually charging the object with said powers, and even then, it's always on purpose. You never hear about mages accidentally creating enchanted items with a spell gone awry or even simply by a mage standing too close (I like to think of ambient magic having the properties of radiation.)

Ritual

Summoning a circle, using specific tools, Latin, rhyming words or songs. Ritual-type magic is seen more for traditional witches and less mages or sorcerers.

Others

Jim Butcher's Codex of Alera uses "furies" or spirits, for magic.

The Mortal Instruments series uses runes.

And stupidity. Runes and stupidity.

And then there's the general "born with a natural affinity" that books seem to love.



There are lots of ways to get magic, but what do you do once you have it?

The most popular is the four elements: earth, fire, air, and water. Fire is always super popular because it doesn't take a lot of brain power to write, so it's always refreshing to see the other elements used as a primary. I don't mean having the power of air and pushing someone over with it, either. If you have the power of air and feel like killing someone, how about sucking it straight out of their lungs? Bet that would work pretty well. Air is always seen as the weakest, daintiest magic, but given some serious consideration, I bet a good author could make an air-based mage pretty formidable.

Sometimes, when a writer is feeling "really creative," they'll throw in other elements. Light and shadow being another two. Occasionally earth will be split in two, creating rock and plant magics. Ice and water are separated quite often, because apparently the temperature can make a difference. Healing, protective, summoning, if you want to get into more obscure concepts. Hey, you know who would be perfect in a medical facility during war time? A fire mage. I'm not kidding. Got a wound? let's cauterize that sucker!

A character of mine used in a collaborative writing forum used completely random spells. The most memorable being a battle golem made of cat litter.

That said, use "magic elements" more creatively than what's been done to death. Better yet, think of a totally different magic system. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson uses ingested metals to create unique powers that totally blew my mind.

Do some research outside of reading this post. Look up "rules of magic" or think back to some books you've read. Magic is such a nebulous concept, so why have we allowed ourselves to assume such cliche rules about it?

Writing Progress

I'm going to take a moment to sit down and talk to you. Not at you like I do with most of my posts, but to you.

Yes, you.

As you may know I started this blog as a way to promote my writing. I post the occasional helpful writing tip as well as a plethora of other things.

Satyrs anyone?

But I've noticed that, in the process, I don't talk much about my actual writing. Oh I give examples and the like, but if I were to personally ask any of you what I'm currently writing you'd just shrug your shoulders and say "I dunno."

When I gave myself a moment to really stop and think about it, I realized I have never told you guys because I'm afraid of letting you down. I don't want to hype a story only to make you guys wait two, three, maybe even four years (I'm being highly pessimistic here) to be able to read it, and that's if you even get to read it at all. What would be worse than announcing a story only later to scrap it because it never worked out?

The problem with not telling you guys anything at all is that you're left in the dark, and then you might start wondering if I'm even doing anything at all.

But fear not, today that all changes! I trepidly step out into unknown territory and reveal to you guys all of my writing progress, whether it's nearing completion or just a spark in my mind, including what round number of editing I'm in. To give you an idea, Dusted took 3-4 full edits, beginning to end. This won't be an exact number for all of my manuscripts, as the length of the story and how much work it needs will vary. Some may require only a few editing rounds, some may need tons.

So, here is my honest progress (the number of them should also show you why you shouldn't pitch your own ideas to writers):

Dusted: Needs new cover and editing.

All Just Survivors: On editing round 2, has 76,395 words. Procrastinating. (To give you a comparison, Dusted clocks in at 74,858 words, and it gained 10,000-20,000 words after editing.)

The Crystal Witch: 17,192 words in. Current focus.

Dreaming (AKA: Dusted 2: The Dustening): 32,963 words. Currently on hiatus.

The Witches of Dunraven (working title): 13,408 words. Resisting urge to work on it so I can focus on other, more complete works.

Lady of Crows: A spark. Resisting urge to even start it so I can focus on other work.


So there they are. This doesn't even include abandoned works, ideas that aren't even a spark yet, or works that need reviewing or writing, but aren't even on the back burner (mentally double or even triple this list for that.)

The problem is, when it comes to writing, I work best at shotgunning. I used to force myself to work on one thing at a time, but that often caused me to lax, sometimes for months at a time. By shotgunning, I'm all over the place. When I find myself getting tired of one thing, I'll jump to the other and work on it until I'm feeling up to working on the first one again. I'll admit, I probably won't get something done in a reasonable amount of time, but it's far more efficient than burning out and doing nothing at all. Best of all, when someone else is helping to read through and edit one manuscript, I'm working on yet another.

Have any questions? Curious about any of them? I'd be happy to provide descriptions of them (note that the less they're worked on the more vague of an answer you'll get). A few people have asked about the sequel to Dusted, so expect to hear about that in more detail another time.

Just Whinging

Although more of a British term, this really does qualify more as whinging than whining according to the definitions. But I'm not here to throw around definitions, I'm here on full whinge-rant mode.

It started with my usual checking out of the Top 100 Kindle book links when I came across this

The Proposition (Billionaire boss) a SEXY romance erotic short

Megan is amazed when her fabulously rich and handsome boss decides to give her a very no-strings, very sexual proposition. She already found him highly desirable and he’d certainly assured her that no matter her answer, he’d respect it. So what was it going to be?

"Oh Jen, you dirty girl!" you cry between mouthfuls of Doritos (I don't judge my readers), "You've been looking through the Romance section of the Kindle store again, haven't you?"

No, you know where I found this?

Science Fiction/Fantasy where it is currently #1 in the bestseller category.

Wait what?

Did I miss something in the description? Is Megan actually a robot? Or mister "billionaire boss" is from another planet, right? Where a ship crashed and there are symbiotic telepathic cats?

Yes, it is technically "fantasy" but not of the swords and sorcery type that is implied. That's why there is a romance section, people can keep their trashy smut in a separate category so that the nerds of the world don't get lightheaded and pass out from the cover alone.

Whoever wrote this book must look at a library and see it broken down into just two categories "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction" where everything is simply shelved as is with no regard toward any narrowed genre.

Yes, I admit romance and fantasy often blur lines, especially urban fantasy (examples include: vampiesvampiresvampiresvampiresvampires) and romance, but when the only "fantasy" are two people getting hot and heavy, and not one mention of anything even slightly fantastical in nature, you're publishing in the wrong categories.

While I'm still in a whinging mood, let's keep going.

Lost in Minecraft: A Minecraft Novel Ft Sky and Captain Sparklez

What
the
actual
trebuchet.

To keep this blog's language PG-13 a trebuchet has been chosen to fling 4 letter words in lieu of the author herself.

Even if you know who Skydoesminecraft and Captainsparklez are, you have to admit this is pretty stupid. Why pick specifically on Lost in Minecraft: A Minecraft Novel Ft Sky and Captain Sparklez (which will now be shortened to LiM:AMNFSaCP) when there are dozens of others?

Because it is #707 in the overall Kindle bestsellers and, narrowing it down, #10 in the Fantasy section.

Who in the hell is buying this? Eight year olds? With Kindles? This costs three dollars! Eight year olds, with Kindles, are throwing money at a book based on a blocky videogame that stars people named Skydoesminecraft and Captain Sparklez.

"This book is so awesome. I hope their will be more books about it. Go sky!! Yay. I really love this book"

Real review there people, 2 out of 3 people apparently thinking it's quite helpful, too.

Yes, eight year olds (did I mention they have Kindles?) can throw money at whatever they want I suppose, but the problem is that we have someone who probably didn't even ask for permission from Mojang (the company that owns the rights to Minecraft), Skydoesminecraft, or Captainsparklez before writing and publishing fanfiction that the author is making money from.

Worst of all, being in the top anything category, it pushes out good books from top categories with its garbage.

Okay, whinge over.

The Opposite of Writer's Block

You hear plenty about writer's block, but what about when the opposite occurs?

Those times when you spend hours writing furiously. You forget about things like food and showering until something far more immediate manages to tear you away from the keyboard.

I shouldn't have had all that beer and coffee and watermelon!

 Even when you're away, you're still there, trapped in lala-land. You're still writing.

Your usual goal is 1,000 words. Heck, you're glad when you've got 500, it's still a good night.

But now?

Now you're cranking out 1,500 one night, 2,600 the next. Your muse, she's not just inspiring you, she's out having a house party (house = your head) with tons of other people, there are smoke machines everywhere, colored lights, and music that goes thumpa thumpa thumpa thumpa.

Like this, but with more glowsticks.

It's been four, maybe five hours, you want to keep going, you really do, but it's time for bed and you've already stayed up a bit later than usual.

When you wake the next morning the bright light of day is crisp. Your muse is passed out on the lawn, the house is a wreck and, for some reason, there is a goat eating your couch.

Normally I don't condone the myth that goats eat everything but this is a goat that lives inside your head.

You think back to all that work you've done, that feeling of being in the zone, and you smile.

This, my friends, is one of the perks of being a writer.

I Hate the Mall

Last weekend I went clothes shopping with my brother. He decided he wanted a new look while I realized I was wearing nothing but overly large, frumpy t-shirts that make my head look weirdly small.

So we went shopping at...The Mall.

Cue ominous lightning.

Apparently hating the mall is a rather common thing, but my mall is special. People complain that their mall is overly crowded and filled with teeniboppers, and so is mine, but I hate my mall for different reasons.

1. It's designed stupidly

Let's give you an example of how stupid it is through the use of the food court. The food court is the one place where you, as an inevitable group of teenagers, can split up momentarily to enjoy a variety of food options.

All crappy options, but still options.

Jessica hates tandoori chicken? Well nuts to her, she can have her pretzel and smoothie. Anyway, Barnes and Noble was feeling a bit too closed in and moved into the mall and the food court was demolished in favor of the bookstore.

Here's where it gets stupid.


So instead of having a single food court, they decide to spread the food stores (they don't even have the dignity to be called "restaurants") all over the mall. You want a burger but want an Orange Julius to drink with it? You're going to have to go waaaaay the heck to the other side of the mall. And what about chairs and tables? I can't even remember what they did for that because, one by one, they closed down. These days we have two food stores: a pretzel place and a Subway right across from each other. I like to think they throw things at each other like they're embroiled in some kind of turf war to be the last one standing.

And that's just the food court. What kind of variety do we have in our stores besides Barnes and Noble? I'll list them:

Clothing store.
Clothing store.
Clothing store.
Clothing store.
Clothing store.

Granted, you have your overpriced jewelry stores and Game Stop with obligatory crappy customer service ("We ran out" my massive, jiggly butt) but that's it. I used to complain about how boring our mall really is, but no one believed me (even me to an extent) until we went to the mall across the state while visiting family. It has:

A movie theater
A bank
A toy store
A miniature golf course
An arcade
A highly offensive novelty shop that would make even the most rebellious youth of this area faint.
A liquor store

Idaho is a repressed place (it has its pros and cons) where I live in Idaho, however, is extra repressed. The best way to put it is that the most conservative of people take one look and go "This place is weeeeeeird." (Except you guys, my lovely local readers. You're all awesome.) This is all represented in how stupid our mall is.

You know what? Previously mentioning my massive, jiggly butt is a great lead into my next point, which is...

2. They have weird sizes

Let me tell you my origin story.

I am actually a chimera: a fusion of two different things. It all started in a freak magic act. The magician was sawing two women in half when horror struck. Panicking, the magician put them back together, but he had gotten the halves mixed up, and it was too late to correct it. It wouldn't have been so bad if the women not been such different weights.

And that, my friends, is how I have the torso of a 120 pound woman but the lower half of a 200 pound woman.

In all seriousness, I do recognize I'm pear-shaped:

Like the woman in red, minus the jaundice.

I also recognize it's primarily my own fault. Yes, I can claim genetics has a hand in this, but I also write this as I am eating a bagel with cream cheese and about to start in on a 20 ounce Dr. Pepper. My favorite hobbies are sitting, laying, sleeping, lolling, and generally doing nothing. I hope to make some changes this summer but that's not what this is about. I'm a size 14 to 16 in pants which is, apparently, the average for women in the US. That means, logically, half the women in the US are a size larger than 14.

So why don't places in the mall carry anything above a size 12?

And don't tell me it's because only teenagers shop at the mall. I saw plenty of women with a toddler and a stroller in tow. So, either the place I live in has the most depressing rate of teenage pregnancies, or else women in their twenties shop there.

I was looking for a pair of jeans but found nothing but a surprising bunch of size 00. Is size 00, or even size 3, really so common that they stock the majority of their denim in those sizes?

What about their tops?

I'm a size Medium, though I occasionally prefer a Large. Already frustrated by their size in jeans, I expected a similar theme in that sizes only came in Small, Extra Small, or XXS. Instead I saw everything from Small to as big as Extra Large.

At that point what little bit of logic I tried to hold onto died a terrible death.

Not that I ever really bother buying much at the mall because....

3. It's expensive

Everyone probably complains of this, but malls really do jack up their prices just so that the tag can say Old Navy even though no one but you is ever going to read it. That's okay though, because it's Mommy and Daddy's money anyway. I meanwhile, have to keep from vomiting rage when I see a $40 price tag on what is a T-shirt.

Actual picture of me.

Then, they confuse you by throwing Clearance and Sale and BOGO at you. While there I saw a clothing rack that had 40% OFF CLEARANCE PRICE!!! slapped all over it. Original price? $80.00, clearance price? $79.99. I checked to make sure the one item wasn't just a fluke. Nope, the entire rack. Brilliant!

I've seen Hot Topic waffle every week between BOGO (buy one get one) 50% off and then have everything 25% off. Anyone with a modicum of math skills would be able to figure out it's the exact same thing (and don't judge me, I go there for the gamer shirts.)

I spent all of $20 at the entire mall despite walking into every single store. It took hours.

All of that overly-expensive merchandise, combined with their target demographic of risk-taking teenagers, is probably why...

4. They treat you like a shoplifter

 As I said, I only spent $20 at the mall, and it was for a single top, but you can be assured it will certainly be memorable.

I picked out a top I liked, it was certainly different from what I have ever worn before, and I wanted to see what I looked like in it. You know those scenes in movies where girls go to the mall and it has a montage of them trying on different things? It doesn't work that way thanks to the store employee having the key and there being a maximum of 2-3 items. Montages are created so you don't see all that fuss.

Anyway, I'm trying on a top. It's got spaghetti straps, which I'm completely unfamiliar with. Only since last year have I even delved into the mysterious world of tank tops. I choose my clothing as though I were the child of a stuffy librarian and an Amish. I like to think I look really good in this top, but my Amish/librarian clothing sensibilities start kicking in and I begin to wonder how it would look if I wore it over the top I'm already wearing. I'm spinning around while the thing tangles up everywhere because I have no idea how to dress myself. It currently resembles something between a lacy turban and a facehugger when I freeze at hearing a sound...

Wham wham wham!

Getting closer...

WHAM WHAM WHAM!

I'm next...

WHAM WHAM WHAM!!!

"EVERYTHING-GOING-OKAY-IN-THERE!?" she shouts while banging at the door like Johnny Quinn trapped in a Sochi bathroom stall (haha, I made a joke based on current affairs!)


"I'm fine," I say, coughing on plaster dust as it rains down from the ceiling.

But what I want to say is:


"Girl, I am a 26 year old woman pathetically trying to reclaim my squandered teenage youth through dressing like a skank! I am not currently stuffing that top into a pant leg or something so leave me the hell alone!!"

I discard the idea of trying it on over my current top, because I just can't now. It's a lot like the same reason some people can't use public bathrooms or two guys standing next to each other at the urinals.

As soon as I come out:

"Can I take that to the register for you while you keep shopping!?" she asks in that too-friendly way store employees are forced to act like.

"Er, sure," I reply, handing it over because I know she's taking it so I don't just walk out with it...or something.

Yes, I like the top, but you know what it needs? A good jacket. It has to be just the right length though. They have one, but it's a size Medium. I said I could fit Medium normally, but in this case me trying to wear a size Medium is like watching The Hulk squeeze into a pair of Size 4 thong (which you now cannot unsee) I didn't find anything else I liked, and the place was starting to creep me out, so I paid for my top and left in a hurry.

I'm not offended as being seen as a possible shoplifter. It's okay, I can understand being cautious, and I think I probably attract more attention than most: I'm twitchy, awkward, and quiet, I meander aimlessly a lot, and I wear big, heavy coats that make me look weird. If people want to keep a close eye on me, that's fine, but never, until that day, was I physically treated as a probable shoplifter.

Of course, I would think stores in the mall are some of the most likely places to be shoplifted. When I tried to look it up, I got this:

There are as many, if not more, searches to shoplift than there are to prevent shoplifting.





Ironically what made me feel better was shopping somewhere else the next day. Retail therapy, if you will (a phrase that just made me die a little inside to use.) Where did I go? My local thrift store. I found exactly what I wanted, including the exact kind of jacket I had been looking for at $6 instead of $40+, new jeans in my jiggly arse size, and a couple of new tops that, when they didn't have price tags on them, were given to me for $1 and $0.50.

So, the moral of the story today is go to the thrift store first: people will leave you the heck alone, save for the occasional hopeless, fish-eyed glance your way; there are no sales, so you don't have to do complex math to figure out what something costs; and no one will care if you try to steal a fifty cent, stringy spandex shirt.

....But seriously kids, don't shoplift. It's bad karma.

Valentine's Day is Boring

Valentine's Day is always rife with complainers, and I used to be one of those many people until I read this (contains swearing and suggestive content in hilarious cartoon form), so today I figured I would take a step in another direction with the power of learning!

This post brought to you by Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge.

In many countries Valentine's Day is seen as kitsch and celebrated about as heartily as we celebrate Lincoln's birthday.

We celebrate heartily by growing beards and throwing pennies at people who don't wear stovepipe hats.

In others they celebrate it as we do, or have their own holiday.

A foreign tradition I'm familiar with (off the top of my head without any research) is that in Japan it is actually women who present chocolate to men on Valentine's Day (they can also give gifts of chocolate to friends, usually other girls). Only recently has there been invented White Day, a day that men provide gifts to women in return for their giving on Valentine's Day.

I'm also familiar with Ostara, which seems to be a combination of Easter and Valentine's Day, but let's go even further back than that.

The furthest back I can find would be Lupercalia, done on Feburary 13 through 15 when people try to ward off evil and promote health and fertility (I'm way narrowing this down as a description, so I suggest reading about it rather than going by my word). This holiday has connections with wolves, it being translated to "Wolf Festival" pretty much literally, and satyrs. There appears to be some dog and goat sacrifices, as well as lashings from whips to promote fertility in women, so I can understand why it fell out of favor.

Then again, I think the whole fertility-lashing might be making a comeback.

Here's my thoughts after all of this, I think Valentine's Day could use a major overhaul using a lot of other people's traditions. Men get enough grief about gift-giving during Mother's day, birthdays, and anniversaries, so let's adopt the Eastern tradition of women giving chocolate to men. While we're at it, we'll go ahead and throw in the fun parts of Lupercalia and have people dress up in furs, and instead of wasting a whole goat, we'll have a delicious chevon barbecue. We can't stop there though, there's too much cutesy-bordering-on-creepy imagery.

Bleh.

How about the wolves and satyrs instead?

Cool!

Awesome!

 So everyone, dressed like this...

Hawt.

Gives out this:

I was too scared to type in "satyr chocolate."

To which the day ends like this:

Derp

I think we'd have a lot fewer complainers, then.

Yet Another Blog Reschedule

I've done a pretty good job bringing posts in a timely manner, but I think I need to push it back further than every Friday.

Before I hear complaints (or cheering? I'm honestly not sure who reads this thing...) here's a pretty good reason for it: I'm a writer first and a blogger second.

Lately I feel like the opposite has been happening. Whenever I have a free chunk of time to spare I spend it writing up a new post rather than working on a manuscript. With fewer posts that allows me to spread out my pre-scheduled posts further out and, thus, have more time to write.

So what is the new schedule already!? You ask in an increasingly frustrated voice.

Here it is: I'm going to try a format of every ten days. On the 10th, 20th, and 30th of every month, expect new posts (with the exception of February, with the last post of the month falling on the 28th).

Overall it won't be too much of cut. Some months have 5 Fridays, some have 4, with the new format there is going to be 3. Originally when I decided on Fridays, I did so with the purpose of giving people the weekend to read the new post, but from what I've been able to see from my readers' statistics it seems as though weekends don't really have an influx of readership (Wednesday actually seems popular for some reason.)

On the upside for my night owl readers, I will also be releasing my posts four hours earlier than before. You may have already noticed this particular time shift a post or two ago.

So, let me try this new schedule out for a few months and see how much work I get done.

Or I'll spend it looking at LOLcats.